“We The People” And America’s Future: Is Rick Perry As American As He Thinks He Is?
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece asking whether Governor Rick Perry could call himself a Christian given his opposition to government actions to help the hungry, aged, and ill. Not surprisingly, many challenged my view of Christianity. In letter after letter they pointed out that Christ spoke to individuals, not government. My observation that He was speaking to a conquered people, not free individuals who could use their power to make a more just state, was not convincing. My reference to the prophets Micah, Amos, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, each of whom called on governmental leaders to help the poor, was dismissed as being from the “Old Testament.”
I will surely return to the issue of Christianity again, but I devote this piece to Rick Perry’s character and the character he would nurture in American citizens. Teddy Roosevelt said, “Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.” So what is the character that Perry embodies? What is his view of the American citizen and the citizen’s responsibility to our country and to one’s fellows?
First, Perry himself.
His persona evokes the rugged individualist. His warning to Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, not to come to Texas so that he can avoid being subjected to “real ugly” frontier justice evidences a character antithetical to one of the crowning achievements of the United States — a nation under law, not men. In a phrase, he dismisses the Bill of Rights — due process, trial by jury, the right to confront one’s accuser.
The real question is not what character he would make of the United States but whether he believes in America at all. He has threatened to secede. Central to his campaign is his pledge to shrink the federal government — making it impossible for our noble nation to lead the world, to serve as the “city on the Hill.”
Perry may want to pretend that he is taking America back to a better past, but his actions are part of the movement away from nation-states, where countries are largely irrelevant. The notion that we are at the end of the need for nation-states is gaining more adherents globally. The fortunate few, commonly referred to as the Davos groupies, hang out with the other well off and well-heeled all over the world. Summering in Europe, wintering in Colorado, the global elite have more in common with and feel more loyal to their carefully connected crowd than with their fellow citizens. When one’s loyalty lies with one’s own class, where does that leave one’s country?
In declaring his wish to shrink the size of government, Perry believes that government should have as little role in people’s lives as possible. No investment in education, science research, building the railroads, highways, or sewage systems of the future. Why care about America’s future, why set inspirational goals that bring people together, if you don’t believe in “We the people”?
Nationalism, patriotism, commitment to one another are for Perry an anachronism, a thing of the past. He has not said that those with the greatest wealth, talent, and circumstances have any special responsibility to our country or their fellow citizens. He has not said we are all Americans together. Rather, he seems to be able to watch human suffering with equanimity — as though America should be a place of survival of the fittest. No Social Security, no Medicare, no unemployment insurance, no laws to protect clean air, clean water. When hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and flood destroy home and communities — no FEMA, no help. “We” are on our own.
In his book Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America From Washington, Perry writes that the 16th Amendment, which gave birth to the federal income tax, was “the great milestone on the road to serfdom,” because it represented “the birth of wealth redistribution in the United States.”
Individualism, self-reliance, self-respect — these are great virtues, useful in many fields of endeavor. But they are not enough to sustain a nation. Virtues don’t spring into being in a moment. They need to be exercised and practiced. Nations at war need courage, quick thinking, and selflessness. Nations at peace require that sense of duty to others. No man goes into a burning building for mere money. Nor does a fierce individualism nurture the patience that a teacher requires, the love given by a hospice nurse caring for a dying man.
Citizens’ moral compasses do not stem only from their faith. Government also defines the moral standard of a nation. If we are told that blacks are worth but three-fifths of whites, many will see this as the acceptable treatment of their fellow man. Likewise, when the government declares it illegal to discriminate on the basis of race, we see that discrimination is also wrong.
When a candidate like Governor Perry boasts that he will shrink government by cutting those programs that grasp the nation’s imagination of what we can do together, he is saying that America does not need the one institution in which we make our most solemn decisions together. We need not nurture a nation of laws, nor educate the young, nor protect the elderly. Teddy Roosevelt took on the trusts, protected the environment, made America more just. The character of the nation improved with his leadership. Can it improve with Perry’s?
By: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, The Atlantic, August 29, 2011
Gov Rick Scott: When Bad Governors Try Bad Ideas
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) came up with an idea he considered pretty clever. First, he told Floridians that people on welfare were more likely to be drug addicts. What did Scott base this on? Nothing in particular — he seemed to just make it up — but Scott was quite fond of the argument.
Second, the governor approved a policy based on his faulty assumptions: those who apply for welfare benefits will have to pass a state-mandated drug test. How’s that working out? Not well.
Since the state began testing welfare applicants for drugs in July, about 2 percent have tested positive, preliminary data shows.
Ninety-six percent proved to be drug free — leaving the state on the hook to reimburse the cost of their tests.
As part of the Scott administration policy, those applying for benefits have to pay a $30 out-of-pocket fee to pay for the drug test. If they pass, Florida reimburses them.
And while the state saves some money by not making benefits available to those 2% who fail the test, Florida is forced to reimburse everyone else, plus pay for staff and administrative costs for the drug-testing program, plus pay the legal fees associated with the likely court challenge.
This really wasn’t a great idea.
I’d also note for context that Rick Scott’s drug-testing policy is limited to low-income Floridians needing temporary aid. It doesn’t, in other words, apply to everyone seeking public funding — only the poor, who the governor assumes are probably drug-addicts.
And speaking of the nation’s worst governor, remember the $2.4 billion Florida was set to receive for high-speed rail? The project that enjoyed bipartisan support and was going to create tens of thousands of jobs? With Scott rejecting the funding, the money has now been officially reallocated for rail upgrades in the Northeast, high-speed rail in the Midwest, and related projects in California.
Florida’s unemployment rate is only 10.7%. It’s not like the state needed the boost.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 26, 2011
Class Warfare, Republican Style
Republicans have finally found a group they think deserves a tax hike: People who don’t make enough money to pay income taxes.
At the recent GOP debate, all the 2012 presidential hopefuls were unanimous in claiming they would reject a deficit-reduction deal if it contained a 10-to-one ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. But as Dave Weigel writes, the GOP’s supposed anti-tax zealots have been strangely unified in arguing that Americans who pay no income taxes — but pay a variety of other taxes — should see their taxes go up:
Republican politicians didn’t make this argument — until the Obama era. What changed? For decades, the “lucky ducky” number, the percentage of Americans that pay no taxes, never rose above 30 percent. The Bush tax cuts pushed it over 30 percent, but not too far over. Then, in 2008 and 2009, the economy collapsed. The government responded with, among other things, new tax deductions.
The result: The percentage of people paying no income taxes spiked up to 47 percent and stayed there. When the Tea Party started rallying in 2009, it wasn’t protesting higher taxes, because federal income taxes were lower, with more loopholes. It was protesting the perception that productive Americans were shelling out for an ever-expanding class of moochers. And Republicans have taken the Tea Party’s lead.
Of course, as Weigel reminds us, these people do pay sales taxes, payroll taxes, gas taxes and the like. As an April 2010 report from Citizens for Tax Justice explained: “Most of these other taxes are regressive, meaning they take a larger share of a poor or middle-class family’s income than they take from a rich family. This largely offsets the progressivity of the federal income tax.” Fat City!
This tax-the-poor attitude is widely held among Republicans, who are currently positioning themselves to oppose an extension of the payroll tax credit. After having demanded Obama extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, Republicans are now fretting that the payroll tax cut will increase the deficit. Extending the Bush tax cuts increased the debt by far more than an extension of the payroll tax cut will, but that was worth it, because cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans is the GOP’s highest priority. It’s far more important than stimulating the economy by giving a tax break to people who might actually need the money.
Of course, we’re not supposed to call the GOP’s commitment to making sure the wealthiest Americans pay as little as possible in taxes — and to increasing taxes on lower income folks — by its rightful name: “Class-warfare.” That term only applies to socialists who think we ought to return to Clinton-era tax rates.
By: Adam Serwer, The Washington Post, August 23, 2011
Why The Rich Should Pay Higher Taxes
Wealthy Americans will recoil at the suggestion, likely responding with the tired mantra that the top earners pay most of the income tax. But two points can be made in response to that: (1) federal income tax is only a small part of the burden on the middle class.
Based on data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the total of all state and local taxes, social security taxes, and excise taxes (gasoline, alcohol, tobacco) consumes 21% of the annual incomes of the poorest half of America. For the richest 1% of Americans, the same taxes consume 7% of their incomes. And (2) the richest people pay most of the federal income taxes because they’ve made ALMOST ALL the new income over the past 30 years. Based on Tax Foundation figures, the richest 1% has TRIPLED ITS SHARE of America’s income since 1980, AFTER TAXES.
But there are better reasons why the rich should pay higher taxes.
The very rich benefit most from national security, government-funded research, infrastructure, and property laws. Defending the country benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. Taxpayer-funded research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (the Internet), the National Institute of Health (pharmaceuticals), and the National Science Foundation (the Digital Library Initiative) has laid a half-century foundation for their idea-building. The interstates and airports and FAA and TSA benefit people who have the money to travel.
Over a hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt, facing an epidemic of inequality not unlike today, reminded us that “Great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by [democratic] institutions; and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions.”
Here’s another good reason for the rich to pay more taxes: With the drop in tax revenue, funding for the preservation of American culture is disappearing. Do we want our national treasures deprived of maintenance because of budget cuts, as is currently happening in Italy? Do we want our national parks sold to billionaires? Do we want programs for music and the arts eliminated from schools, so that only children of the wealthy can participate in them?
The 1912 book “Promised Land” by Mary Antin revealed the wonder of a Russian immigrant coming to the U.S.: “In America, then, everything was free…light was free…music was free.”
Not that capitalist markets don’t have their place. But the current view of democracy has gone to the other extreme, in which individualism and personal gain trump societal responsibility, and growing inequality makes community support and safeguards unnecessary for the privileged elite.
Finally, back to the tax statistics. Why should financial earnings (i.e., capital gains) be taxed less than wage earnings from actual work? The richest 10% of Americans own over 80% of the stocks, the gains from which are taxed at a 15% rate. Most wage earners pay more.
Furthermore, over the past 15 years millionaires have seen their income tax rates drop from 30% to 22%. During approximately the same time period, American economic growth declined from an annual 3.2 percent rate to 1.7 percent. Lower taxes for the rich do not lead to productivity.
Will the rich stop investing or move to another country if their taxes are increased? Not likely. They have it too good here. As Warren Buffett recently stated, “I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone – not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 – shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”
Mr. Buffett is admitting what everyone else is beginning to realize. The rich take much more than they pay for.
By: Paul Buchheit, CommonDreams.org, August 22, 2011
Former Sen. Phil “Mental Recession” Phil Gramm Endorses His “Protege” Rick Perry
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) yesterday jumped in the 2012 GOP presidential primary, saying that “it is time to get America working again.” “I will work every day to make Washington, DC, as inconsequential in your lives as I can, and free our families, small businesses and states from a burdensome and costly federal government so they can create, innovate and succeed,” he said. And Perry quickly picked up the endorsementof former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX):
Former senator and current banker Phil Gramm of Texas — well-connected to big donors but controversial for his role in preventing tighter regulation of Wall Street — told The Huffington Post yesterday that he is endorsing his former student and political protege, Texas Gov. Rick Perry...”I’m for Rick and I will do what I can to help,” Gramm said in an interview in Detroit. “He has been an effective governor. He is a determined guy from a small town who knows how to get things done.”
In 2008, Gramm, who was advising Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign (and was floated as McCain’s choice for Treasury Secretary) gained notoriety for saying that the country was “a nation of whiners” that was only in a “mental recession.”
But Gramm’s legacy goes much deeper than that. In 2001, he tucked the Commodity Futures Modernization Act into an unrelated, 11,000 page appropriations bill. That act ensured that the huge market in over-the-counter derivatives stayed unregulated, laying the groundwork for the 2008 financial crisis (and the implosions of AIG and Lehman Brothers). He also believes there should be no minimum wage and has derided the working poor by saying, “we’re the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat.”
Perry was a student of Gramm’s at Texas A&M, and when Perry became governor “Gramm and his bank pushed a controversial proposal to allow the company to take out insurance polices on teachers and other workers, even though the workers themselves would not benefit.” If Gramm’s support is any indication, Perry’s zeal for financial deregulation will know no bounds.
By: Pat Garofalo, Think Progress, August 14, 2011
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